Donors pay for Peachtree-Pine shelter's $580,000 water bill, pledge help with future payments

• Max Blau
• Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless Executive Director Anita Beaty

The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the nonprofit organization that runs Atlanta's largest homeless shelter at the intersection of Peachtree and Pine streets, today settled its six-figure water bill just days before city officials planned to shut off its water.

Outside City Hall's main entrance, Task Force Executive Director Anita Beaty this morning announced that anonymous private donors have agreed to contribute approximately $580,000 to pay off Peachtree-Pine shelter’s entire water bills. She said additional donations would be placed in an escrow account to help with future water payments, allowing the overflow shelter to keep serving hundreds of city’s homeless men, women, and children on a nightly basis.

"We are there because we need to be there and want to be there," Beaty said. "There are hundreds of thousands of people in this city who are left out, who are excluded from emergency shelters, from transitional housing, and permanent housing."

In late August, Atlanta Department of Watershed Management officials sent letters to nearly 300 businesses and nonprofits demanding payment for unpaid water bills within 30 days. If the delinquent bills weren't paid last Monday, city officials said, the water would be shut off before the end of September. That decision came despite Beaty's efforts to make a partial $100,000 payment last week.

The city rejected their offer last Friday, ordered them to pay the entire $580,000 bill, and laid out a potential plan to transition the homeless to other facilities. The plan included re-opening Springdale Place, a recently closed 150-bed shelter previously operated by Fulton County, and evaluating what city-owned properties could be used to house men, women, and children.

Those properties included a former firehouse in Westview that until earlier this year served as a women’s shelter — and which until last Monday the city was preparing to sell to a private developer. Chris Carter of Vantage Realty had envisioned renovating the approximately 6,000 square-foot building along the Atlanta Beltline’s southwest segment into a mixed-use development. The plan was put on hold by the city early last week when it seemed likely that Peachtree-Pine residents would need to be moved if the Task Bill failed to pay its bills. Now that the shelter is staying in place, Mayor Kasim Reed’s Senior Advisor Melissa Mullinax says the firehouse would most likely not be needed and the sale could continue.

"It's been absolute hell for us," Beaty told reporters. "Every single day since last Friday, we've thought that any day now, the water people would come to turn off the water. Folks in the building have been desperate."

Beaty declined to reveal the donors' identities; she alleges that business leaders have put pressure against their contributors in the past. She also said public officials have told their donors they wouldn’t be able to do business with the city if they gave money to the Task Force.

For the past six years, the Task Force and city have fought over rising unpaid water bills. In 2008, the city shut off the water after the shelter racked up a $160,000 water bill. The Task Force reached an agreement to resume payments following a judge's order to turn the water back on. According to DWM records, the shelter operator stopped making payments in July 2010, which prompted the city to make additional threats to turn off the tap the next year due to a $237,000 bill. Since that time, the debt has increased amid separate lawsuits with the building's owners, including one legal battle fighting the group’s eviction from the property. Beaty has regularly disputed the exact bill amount and accused the city and business leaders of attempting to oust the shelter operator from the building to sell the property.

“Miracles do happen,” said Mullinax, who’s been City Hall’s point person on the water bill issue. When Beaty asked her about if she was happy about the Task Force paying the bill, she replied. “I am, absolutely. I think it’s terrific you paid your bill. It’s over a half-million dollars that taxpayers have been subsidizing for a while. I hope you stay current.”

Mullinax said the city would continue readying Springdale Place to increase its overall capacity and working with the United Way of Greater Atlanta about additional shelter space. Task Force lawyer Steve Hall says Peachtree-Pine began accepting women and children last year to fill a need left by the Gateway Center, which now only houses homeless men. With a new city-operated shelter opening, Beaty has talked with officials about how to transition women and children out of Peachtree-Pine to another facility — potentially Springdale Place.

According to Beaty, the Task Force would now turn its focus toward building a rainwater catchment system to become less reliant on the city’s water supply. Task Force Board Member Carl Hartrampf, a former city housing commissioner, says the green initiative would be coupled with conservation efforts within the shelter. Beaty says the Task Force would need to raise additional funds to install the system on the shelter’s rooftop.